Butcher Boy- The Stanley's (IO) c.1901 Stout A
[My date. From: Folklore from Iowa, collected and edited by Earl J. Stout, 1936. His notes follow. Practically all of the material in this collection was gathered during the fall and winter of 1931.
R. Matteson 2017]
THE BUTCHER BOY. For reference, see Cox, No. 145; Mackenzie, Quest of the Ballad, p. 9; Pound, No. 24; Sandburg, p. 324; Hudson, p. 31; Journal, XXIX, 169; XXXI, 73; XXXV, 360; XXXIX, 122; XLV, 72.
A. "The Butcher Boy." Contributed by Miss Edith Stanley, Massena, as dictated by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Stanley, Massena. Miss Stanley's mother knew the ballad before she could read, and her father knew it when he was a little boy from hearing his mother sing it.
1. "In Jersey City where I did dwell
Lived a butcher boy I loved so well.
He courted me my heart away,
And then with me he would not stay.
2. There is an inn in that same town
Where my love goes and sets him down.
He takes a strange girl on his knee,
And tells her what he won't tell me.
3. It's grief to me, I'll tell you why;
Because she's got more gold than I.
But her gold may melt and her silver fly,
And in time of need be as poor as I.
4. Oh, Mother, Mother, you do not know
What grief it is, what sorrow, woe;
Go get me a chair to sit me on,
And pen and ink to write it down."
5. At the end of every line, she drops a tear
While calling for her Willie dear.
And when her father he came home,
He said, "Where has my daughter gone?"
6. He went upstairs, the door he broke,
He found her hanging to a rope.
He took a knife and cut her down
And on her breast these lines he found.
7. "Go dig my grave both wide and deep,
Place a marble stone at my head and feet;
And on my breast a turtle dove
To show the world I died of love."